UNMIK ON AIR

19^th November 2003

Serbia’s election failed again – impact on Kosovo

(By Zoran Culafic)

Last Sunday 16^th the Presidential elections held in Serbia failed again for the third time; many analysts believe this to be a very clear massage that Belgrade authorities should be thinking very seriously about.

Hello and welcome to this edition of UNMIK on Air.

Three years ago, after a massive popular appraisal not seen for decades in the region, Slobodan Milosevic’s regime was ousted from Serbia. On October 2000 people voted very strongly against the existing regime and a new government was formed, according to some press from that time no one in Serbia really thought the new representatives to be any promising except themselves.

Halim Maliqi is a Kosovar Albanian lawyer from …UNMIK on Air met him and his Serb friends in Caglavica, a village on the outskirts of Prisitina. All political elites in the region, says Halim, and not only in Kosovo or in Serbia, are not politically mature enough, and there should be a new young generation of politicians in the Balkans if all of us want a better future. Halim Maliqi explained why he thinks the recent elections in Serbia failed.

Halim Maliqi: The majority of the existing political leadership wasted their time in the entire Balkans region they proved that the most important thing for them is how to survive the political scene and not how to find the right solution. I believe that with a generation of new young politicians in the entire Balkans region, a modern kind of politicians, only after that Balkan people will join the civilized and modern multiethnic European path, and live a dignified life, as it should be in 21^st. Century.

Maliqi’s Serb friends from Caglavica totally agree with that stance. Mile Denic, a 68 year-old pensioner from Caglavica, says it’s not at all a matter of ethnic origin, the truth is that politicians in both Pristina and Belgrade are doing very little to improve the standard of life of the people who, finally, voted for them.

Mile Denic: I think that the major reason, not to go deeper in analysis, is the fact that people do not have any confidence in Serbia’s Government, and that’s why they gave up and didn’t participate in the elections.

Toma Trajkovic is a 45 year-old auto mechanic also living in Caglavica. He says that with the present politicians in Belgrade and Pristina he can’t see any future at all for his four children; no jobs, no cinemas, no theaters, no computer courses, no free movement nothing to give the children a better foundation for a normal life.

Toma says the Serb population in Kosovo has to understand that they are left alone in Kosovo and they should accept the reality – the only choice they have is to leave everything in Kosovo and flee to Serbia, where they have to start from zero, or integrate into a the society here and live with their Albanian neighbors, as many Serbs did indeed in the past.

Toma Trajkovic: The state left us alone during these four or five years we have been totally left alone, no one cares about us. Everyone is just promising big things but I don’t believe that any of the actual political parties in Serbia, neither any of future ones, will help us.

In Kosovo as well as in Serbia proper, Seselj’s Radical party won the majority votes in the recent presidential elections, although he didn’t get the sufficient votes to be president; raising many fears that some extreme nationalistic forces could be forging a big political come back.

Many analysts claim that it was a clear sign that Serbia’s ruling DOS coalition failed to proof its democratic path. Toma says that while DOS coalition parties quarrel with each other, the Radical party and Milosevic’s Socialist party – SPS succeeded in gaining the majority votes in Kosovo.

Toma Trajkovic The Radicals have some strong (influent) people here and they joined their forces with SPS and that’s why they succeeded and probably they will win the next elections too. SPS and Radicals joined the forces in the Serb enclaves here so they are now the strongest political force among Serbs in Kosovo.

A situation understood not only by Serbs, but also by K-Albanians. Halim Maliqi and Milan Denic agree with their friend Toma.

Halim Maliqi: I believe that the majority of the people understand that all of that is just pure political games; of all those politicians and their interest groups, for their own sake, while not having any feeling for the interests of the people here.

Milan Denic: There is nothing yet of all that they promised us during the pre-elections campaign.

It appears that politicians should put a finger on their head and think very seriously about the real interests of the people they expect to vote for them. Next year will be the year of elections in Kosovo too, and K-Albanian political leaders could learn much from Serbia’s electoral lesson.

And that was it for this edition of UNMIK on Air. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more